SHE is best known for her role as meek and mild Mavis.

But now former Huddersfield actress Thelma Barlow is to take on a new challenge - as an evil villain in Doctor Who!

Barlow played one of Coronation Street's best-loved characters, timid Mavis Wilton, for 26 years.

Clad in sensible cardigan and shoes, she served behind the counter at The Kabin, alongside Rita Sullivan.

Now the 77-year-old former Huddersfield Technical College student will star as glamorous Lady Sylvia Thaw in an episode called The Lazarus Experiment, which will go out on May 5.

And she will star alongside former Bretton Hall drama student Mark Gatiss as her husband, as they team up to take on the Time Lord.

The actress, who quit Coronation Street in 1997, is also known for her role in BBC sitcom Dinnerladies.

She also turned in an award-winning performance in the hit film Mrs Henderson Presents, which starred Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins.

The May 5 episode will also feature the League of Gentleman's Gatiss, 39, as a scientist. Gatiss wrote two earlier episodes of Doctor Who.

Barlow, who moved to Huddersfield from her Middlesbrough birthplace as a young child, is relishing the new challenge.

"When my friends said that a part in Doctor Who would be good on my CV, I thought: `What do I need a CV for at my time of life?'

"But then I realised the character Lady Thaw is probably the nearest I could get to Lady Macbeth, whom I've always wanted to play.

"And my grandchildren would never forgive me if I didn't do this. It's good cred for them at school."

She moved to Huddersfield with her mother and sister, Veda. Thelma left school at 15 and went to Huddersfield Technical College to study shorthand and typing.

She took her first job as a secretary and continued working there for eight years, spending her spare time at Huddersfield Technical College in their amateur dramatics group.

At the advice of her drama teacher, Thelma decided to take up acting professionally and joined The Joan Littlewood Theatre Group.

In the episode, The Doctor's sidekick, Martha Jones, returns home as Russell T Davies' Doctor Who continues.

This could be the end of her travels with the Doctor.

When she discovers her family is caught up in the scheming of Professor Lazarus and his Genetic Manipulation Device, it becomes a fight for survival, as human DNA twists into monstrous form.

David Tennant plays the Doctor and Freema Agyeman plays Martha Jones in the third series of Doctor Who from the pen of Russell T Davies.